In an empty gesture of FALSE SUPPORT AND UNDERSTANDING President Obama went before the camera today to assauge MAin Street Americans with a "AIG Kabuki Dance!" "I'm MAD AS HELL, and I'm NOT GOING TO TAKE IT ANY MORE. I've ordered my effeminate and useless Treasury Secretary to get out of his pink tutu and STOP THOSE BONUS PAYMENTS if it can be legally done!" Talk about hyperbole and stage craft for the benefit of the CNN, FOX and other network cameras...can hear Barack now, "Did you get that?" "Great! It's a wrap folks, FIRE UP AIR FORCE ONE!"
The American International Group office building in New York. (Mark Lennihan)
Obama orders Treasury chief to try to block AIG bonuses
Published: March 16, 2009
Barack Obama vowed to try to stop the faltering insurance giant American International Group from paying out hundreds of millions of dollars in bonuses to executives, as the administration scrambled to avert a populist backlash against banks and Wall Street that could complicate Obama's economic recovery agenda.
"In the last six months, A.I.G. has received substantial sums from the U.S. Treasury," Obama said. He added that he had asked Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner "to use that leverage and pursue every single legal avenue to block these bonuses and make the American taxpayers whole."
In strongly-worded remarks delivered in the White House East Room before small business owners, Obama called AIG "a corporation that finds itself in financial distress due to recklessness and greed."
